Monday, May 5, 2014

Ordinary Time

Perhaps the first thing to notice is the very ordinariness of it all – Jesus coming after the resurrection to his various followers: sharing meals with them, talking to them, sitting with them.

Perhaps then we might remember that God doesn’t comes to us when we’re rescuing children from burning buildings or leaping tall buildings with a single bound . . . nor does God come doing those things . . . most of the time . . . most of the time, God comes to us at the dinner table . . . sitting beside us watching tv in the living room . . . walking or driving home . . . working in the garden . . . standing at the Wal-Mart check out.

We live our lives in ordinary time . . . thus it follows that most of the time, God, who is ever-present, would be with us not or not mostly, in times of crisis, but in the every-day of things.

God’s coming to us where we are is what we call grace – a thing done just for the doing and not for the earning.

Our recognizing God when the divine stands before us we might call mindfulness – paying attention . . . looking for . . . seeking out the very God before us.

When Jesus comes to dinner, grace and mindfulness meet at the table and share a meal.

It’s not very noteworthy in the headline news. Nobody – even me – will record for history that I eat dinner tonight. No one, including me, will remember what was served.

The big deal is not what we’re doing at the time . . . it’s not even what we need at the time. . . the big deal is that Jesus is there at all . . . that we have been graced with his presence –

Merely by being here with us, God has elevated us beyond the ordinary that we were into something more beautiful, more wonderful . . . we are made better merely by God being in the room.

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